Excerpts from Associated Press and Reuters:
Children under 10 years old “…aren’t having nearly as robust an immune reaction to the swine flu vaccine, and it appears they’ll need two shots 21 days apart, said Dr. Anthony Fauci, head of NIH’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease.
That’s not a surprise, since the very young often need two doses of vaccine against regular winter flu the very first time they’re immunized against that version of influenza, too…”
“With seasonal flu vaccine, children under 9 who are getting a flu vaccine for the first time need two doses … so … young children who have never had a flu vaccine before will need four doses this year — two seasonal flu doses and two swine flu doses.”
“This H1N1 strain sickens younger people more frequently than the over-65 population who are seasonal flu’s main victims. So children are among the priority groups who are supposed to be first in line once swine flu vaccine starts arriving next month, and many schools around the country are expected to offer mass vaccinations.”
The CDC says you can get one dose of the seasonal flu shot in one arm and one dose of the H1N1 flu shot in the other arm on the same day.
